Welcome to our family's homelife blog. We are a homeschooling family with four children. They are GM age 10, GD age 8 and ME age 5 and our fresh little Baby O. We set this up to share with family and friends who ask "what have you guys been up too"?

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Productive Monday and Lovely Tuesday

After a weekend of football, birthdays and housework we were ready for our Monday morning to come. The boys are loving having their room more organized, and I am too. Gavin got to use a larger dresser and it seems to be such a success. Now he can keep all his dress-up costumes in the small one and the large one actually holds all his clothes. Good news all around!

Monday Lessons:A good day today, and fast paced. We skipped yoga and went right to their meditation and poetry. It seemed to work well, although I prefer to do the yoga in the morning before lessons, I thought I would just see if it was really making a big difference. I think it helps a lot, but GD gets annoyed if it is everyday. Maybe I will do it every other morning or something. Anyway the boys enjoyed a poem from Spider Magazine about a snowman with a cold, and played Mary Had A Little Lamb on their lap harps. They do really well with it, but I think next week we will do xylophone to keep things fresh. Journals went well, GM likes the three options thing, and chose to write about his new room. We read a Grimm's Fairytale called The Golden Goose and moved right into our LAs. Each of the boys did a lesson in their Reading Comprehension Books and some additional activities that related to the day's lesson. Math was easy today, GM did the homework side of a Saxon page he had done last week and a Math Path, while GM began working on some simple addition with me. He is doing very well with adding, 0, 1, and 2 to a number, we will keep moving with it as he seems ready to absorb it right now. He has periods where he can really take in a lot and just leaps forward, and then you need to relax it and allow him to absorb the information. I enjoy working with him because his learning is so in tune with his development, its fun to be a part of. Today they each read a book to me. GM read More Spaghetti, I Say which GD really enjoyed and GD read My Loose Tooth, which seems appropriate for getting him ready for the idea of loosing his first tooth. He smiled really big when he got to the part about the tooth fairy visiting him. It was a good choice. Our afternoon was quiet while GM began building his Mars Rover from LEGO and GD played with his Leapster and ME for the afternoon.Tuesday was terrific!! We started out by attending our first Science Class at a local museum. Both boys loved it. I stayed with GD and a friends daughter, while the other Mom went with her older son and GM. Both boys seemed to be really interested in it and the decision to split them up was a good one. GD had a big smile on his face for most of the class and seemed to really be into it. What a great time they had. GD did "Air, Air Everywhere" obviously about Air... while GM did a class on Rocks and Minerals, something he LOVES!!!! We met some other families we hadnt met before and got to see some we havent seen in a long time. It was really fun. Afterwards the other Mom and her four little ones came over to play. The kids had such a GOOD time while we visited. A little later another Mom came over and it was like a little party. (10 kids makes a party in my book). They played really well and while GM got to get some boy energy out GD made a friend!!! Im soooooo happy for him. He has one of the little girls in his science class, and gave her TWO hugs after class to try to be nice, and then at our house he played all afternoon with the other little girl and had a really good time being pirates and finding treasure with his stuffed animals. They were walking around the house with stocking caps on and lugging around a treasure. It was really cute. His heart was so happy for the rest of the evening. He is slow to connect but when he does it is definitely from the heart. Im just so happy to see he has finally been able to do it.

ME had a good time playing with her "girl" toys in her new room. They saw a lot of action and she did a pretty good job of sharing with the other kids. A few things (quite random actually) needed to be put up, but other than that I didnt here a single "MINE" scream from her. What a relief. She was all over one of the Moms which isnt unusual for her, she loves to snuggle with people, and her target was definitely chosen yest. :-)

I spent the evening watching American Idol (something i havent done since season one) and reading up for this mornings lessons. Were off to another day...